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Now I consider myself a pacifist, a woman who loves and appreciates nature but I swear every spring when the pollen dances on the gentle breeze into my world and I turn into a sneezing, swollen faced, itchy eyed, hazy headed medicated to the eyeballs zombie I say to nature, screw you.

I know not exactly ladylike but neither is my red bulbous nose that is sick of tissues that claim to be soft but after the 150th wipe feel more like sandpaper. There is a two week period in every spring when a paper bag over my head would be more appealing than the punch drunk red eye look I stagger around with. One of the things that makes me feel better is the knowledge that I’m not alone, one look around the shopping centre, particularly the chemist, more specifically the shelves where they stock the hayfever cold treatments and that’s where you’ll find them. The glazed, my brain is now controlled by pollen look and you know your not alone in your hatred of blossom, grass, basically nature.

So what’s the solution, drugs? Well it’s where we all turn each year, sufferers whisper amongst themselves about new improved formulas, pills, liquids, sprays and lotions but as the pollen season progresses I like most sufferers start to think that only an exorcism will be the only way to get relief!

But no more, I’m calling on all sniffy, itchy, wheezy sufferers to pick up our whipper snippers and chainsaws and rid this planet of any source of pollen. I know that may not be in the spirit of keeping the planet green but I want to breathe freely through my nose again so I say screw keeping the planet full of foliage, burn it, cut it or just raze it to the ground.

So lets unite in our pollen elimination, just one thing though if you don’t mind starting the process and I’ll just have a lie down with a cold towel and then join you when my eyes stop weeping and my nose stops running like a tap!

I did it because I loved you. Even though I was warned, even though I had heard the stories, I could not resist, when you asked me and looked at me, looked at me with those eyes. Those hopeful eyes, those eyes that I could gaze into for hours, those eyes that could melt any resolve or resistance I put forward. It was not like I wasn’t smart or inexperienced in these matters, I mean after the last time I had vowed never, ever to do it again but even though I tried all types of delaying tactics you knew and I knew that I would do it.

So I would ignore common sense I would ignore the “I told you so” , the “I thought you said never ever again” and I would do it for you, my love for you was that strong.

I took a deep breath to calm myself, my hand trembled and even faltered as I started but I knew it had to be done so I pushed through. I knew if I did it quickly I wouldn’t be able to change my mind.

It was done, I looked in your eyes and I knew I had done the right thing, you looked so happy and I desperately tried to match your enthusiasm but I knew that I had just volunteered for parent help at your next excursion and there was only one thing I could think of. Where’s the wine?

I’m not afraid to admit it, I have a new love. I thought my heart was full to the brim, I mean I’ve got a great partner, I’ve bred some wonderful human beings who love me and are still happy to be seen in public with me. So of course I thought there was no room in my big ol’ heart but then he came through our front door.

It’s not quite as Mills and Boons as it sounds, I spent many arduous hours in front of the laptop doing research and after hand picking him at the store I lugged him to the car. But then he was here, in our house and as soon as he was fully operational I knew there was no turning back. So what is this object of desire? This thing that has brought my heart to near bursting point? (insert dramatic pause) ……. Robovac, that’s right my robotic vacuum, oh yeah this little round piece of loveliness with cameras and sensors has only been with us ten months but I love him and never want him to leave.

If, like me, you have a marauding crowd who run through your house thinking the floor is some kind of alternate bin then you too will love this little round whizzy robot. With no questions asked, no whining, no selective hearing he just starts doing his thing. He’s small and powerful and as his proud mother I’m just going to have to tell you how smart he is, we went all supremo and got the top Robovac model so this little lad is so smart he can take himself back to the docking station and empties the crap he picked up off the floor into the unit. It truly is miraculous he starts the job and finishes it and with no breaks, just gets on with it with little if no fuss.

I’ve always thought the people featured on those infomercials must be medicated, I mean seriously who could be that excited about any of those products. But that was before Robovac now if someone turned up to my house and wanted to film me while Robovac was doing his thing I would enthusiastically blubber on about how he has transformed my life as well. I remember once when I was reading a book on the couch and he whizzed past and I couldn’t help but let out a little “I love you” to him.

So here’s to you lovely Robovac and again I’ll share my intimate thoughts about you, I already posted this to him on facebook at Valentines Day but I guess it never hurts to reiterate those important feelings so …

I’d like to tell the world how much I appreciate all the hard work, the dedication and the way you make my life just that little bit easier, that’s right I love you robot vacuum. And to the four lads I have making the mess that Robovac cleans up each day, hugs and smooches this Valentines Day xx

Maybe your heart is full of love for a partner, kids, dogs, cats or Star War figures, whatever fills it with joy just remember something can come into your life and just push it to the brim!

I was a bit of a johnny come lately to the coffee scene. My far more cultured friends and I were meeting for catchups in the booming café scene and one day I noticed I was the only one without a glass of caramel coloured liquid in front of me. While my friends had perfected their coffee order; flat white, latte, decaf, weak, strong, skinny, full cream etc, etc, the most challenging question I had to answer was whether I wanted one or two marshmallows! That’s right I was still chugging down the not so chic hot chocolate and I realized it was time I stepped up to the adults table and order me some caffeine.

This was all BC, before children, so the need for a regular coffee stimulant wasn’t really there, I mean if I was tired I just went and took a nap! So it wasn’t really a need for a caffeine jolt that made me take the leap I just wanted to seem less like the prepubescent nerd and more like one of the cool kids sipping on caffeine.

So I ordered a latte, mostly because that seemed the more popular choice and as an added bonus it came with a pretty white serviette wrapped around it. Apparently in the early days of drinking lattes our fingers were all too delicate for this hot beverage in a glass and had to be protected by a paper serviette wrapped around the middle of it! Not sure what happened to the serviette, maybe our fingers hardened up from daily coffees, maybe we realized we were wiping out rainforests by wrapping paper products around glasses that were really, more than adequate in protecting our digits. Anyhoo I thoroughly enjoyed my first coffee, it helped that I added three heaped teaspoons of refined sugar thus making it more of a sweet syrup than a real coffee.

As I said that was BC, after we entered the breeding program our daily coffee intake seemed to skyrocket and seemed to be as essential as the air we breathed. By the time we had produced our third bundle of joy we had “invested” in a coffee machine at home. That poor machine didn’t stand a chance, we wore it out and then we wore another one out and with this one we’re hoping three times a charm! Time will tell.

Now that our munchkins are older we also like to go out for coffee but we don’t leave it to chance, oh no we have become such coffee snobs that we research where we should get a coffee! If we find ourselves in some suburb we’re not familiar with we consult our coffee handbook! To us it’s our go to guide, pages and pages of reviews and descriptions, we have become such a slave to it’s recommendations that we dare not try any place that is not listed in our guide!

Our city’s paper even has a part in their Tuesday’s epicure lift-out devoted to coffee and I religiously turn to it each week. Sure I don’t know my Ethiopian blend from my eco friendly Jamaican co-op blend but I love that there are people who do. What stopped my love affair in its tracks was an article about baristas and certain cafes starting to draw the line at particular orders. A few have decided not to do soya milk in coffees any more, it ruins the integrity of the blend, blah, blah, blah. Say what!! I don’t want to go all home girl ghetto but just make my coffee the way I like it, if I want to ruin it with soya milk let me pay the privilege for it, oh that’s right I already do because soya milk is always charged more anyway!!!!

The other clanger that quite a few cafes have decided on is only one size, again supposedly done for the convenience of the paying customer, apparently we’re all so desperate with caffeine addiction that we can’t wait another couple of minutes if someone ahead of us wants to order a large size coffee.

So this is what it has come too, you get us all addicted to your smooth, gloriously satisfyingly wonderful blends, you publish guides, columns in newspapers, you have apps, expos, there are even tours, (yes I’m desperate to do one of these), you do all this and then you change the rules. You even suckered us in with cool and friendly baristas, if you’re as easily pleased as me you’d love the uber cool dude or dudette who remembers your order and just starts making it. I have been reeled in hook, line and sinker and now I have been thrown to the kerb with my large takeaway cup and soya milk.

If I was strong, if I had principles, if I wasn’t a slave to the coffee bean I’d just go home and brew myself a satisfying pot of peppermint tea. Unfortunately I am weak so I will meekly go and order my regular size latte with regular milk and sure I will savour the taste and enjoy the experience but I want all the hipster baristas to know this – you may have won this time but somehow, somewhere I might just, probably think of some way to grab back the power. Of course all my better ideas come to me after a coffee so I will just go and get a coffee…… doooh!!!!!

One of the few good things about getting older is that you find acceptance for the things that seemed so important only a few short years ago. For example the size of my bum, I have come to accept its expansion and jelly like quality, I don’t love it but I’ve accepted most of the time I can’t even see it so really, it seems like someone else’s problem. So my blessings are many and apart from really, really wanting someone to magically appear and clean my house on a semi regular basis, ok daily basis, I thought I was quite zen as a human being. Of course that was before I got my access all areas at a recent Coldplay concert, that is where my zen went out the window and my inner schwonker reared it’s ugly head.

This will really piss of hardcore Coldplay fans but I’m really only a “yeah I really like them”, “they’re great, really talented”, but I really only know their songs from what I hear around. So no I don’t know what they’re latest album was called or even what the bass player or drummers name is but I didn’t have to because one of my besties had chosen me and two others to go with her to their concert and use her access all areas passes.

The cosmic forces had come together, my wonderful friend had reunited with her old friend who just happened to be coming to our home town and as luck would have it he was to be an important part of the Coldplay tour. So through sheer luck and friendship I found myself at the Coldplay concert for free and oh did I mention with an access all areas pass!

While we were waiting for our Coldplay connection to come and bestow upon us our pass we traded stories about tragic concert behaviour we had done in our past. Yeah that’s right we were trying to keep it cool, real cool but I swear to you the moment that access all area pass was taped around our wrist there was a bit more swagger in our step. We were ushered through the backstage area straight onto the floor area, right in front of stage. I’d like to say that I didn’t notice people see us being ushered in and then have things pointed out to us, but I did indeed notice and I did indeed like it.

So my chest was a little more puffed up with self importance, sure we were probably not the only ones walking around with these passes, there may have been even better passes than these ones but we didn’t care, we had access to all areas. Of course we found out soon enough that “all” didn’t actually mean complete rockstar access, we were hardly hanging out with the band in their dressing rooms but it was the closest I’d ever been to the inner sanctum of a band.

We decided to celebrate our upgraded status with some bubbly, so while we were waiting in the line my mind drifted to the alternate universe where our all area pass was spotted by one of the officials, he rushes forward, while he offers apologies for not noticing earlier how important we are he whisks us to a secret door, they’ll be no watered down, over priced substandard drinks tonight for us. Oh yeah this is how it’s meant to be, privilege and power, this is good, this is…

“What do you want?” the disinterested bargirl asks.

Ripped out of my dream world into reality I hand over way too much money for drinks with way too little alcohol content. With watered down drinks in hand we head back to the our prime positions, we glide past the people who probably paid a fairly hefty amount and more than likely spent a lot of time on the phone or computer hitting the redial or refresh button trying to get their seats. See you later suckers, sure your seats are good but they’re not access all areas, alright I’m not drunk enough yet to say anything as obnoxious as that but I think the way I casually shift my pass up and down my arm they can they get the message.

I notice that the gals I’m with are playing it a little cooler than me so I stop what is potentially becoming an OCD thing and stop moving the pass up and down my arm. While I’m deciding what level of obnoxiousness is suitable at this time of the night I notice the line we’re in has stopped moving. I lean forward to one of my gal pals and say

“There really should be a separate line for access all area passes.”

Whatever level of obnoxiousness I was contemplating before has been knocked out of the park because there is now a new level, and its name is schwonker. To my delight my gal pal smiles and agrees so I know she too has joined the club.

The line starts moving again and we are about to go through the gates taking us to our prime position.

“You can’t go in there.” a burly security guard blocks our path.

Now if you were interested in human behaviour you would be fascinated by the next turn of events. One of us stood there open mouthed, looking confused, one instantly went into game on mode and the other tipsy from skulling her overpriced cheap wine stepped forward and said one of the most schwonkiest things you could say.

“ Don’t you know who I am?”

In the cold light of day without access all areas bands on I would never ask anyone this question because quite frankly I’m not sure I’d want to know their response! On the other hand my inner schwonker has no problem asking it. My blessing is that my question was drowned out by the music starting and my girlfriend having a heated argument with the security guard about the definition of the word all.

I’d like to say I returned to my zen self when I got home but I’ll admit I did wear a t-shirt and “forget” to cut my wrist band for a couple of days afterwards. My inner schwonker milked that access all areas band for more days than was really right to do so. Inner shwonker has been contained now but I know that given the right circumstances it could rear it’s ugly head at any opportunity!!

Living in a country that practically makes it illegal not to spend your summer near some form of water I sigh with relief as another hot summer seems to disappear. There are a few reasons I’m not that crash hot on the summer months. The first would be plain old vanity, my lily white skin is, lets face it, not in vogue and when you’re talking to people at the beach and you realize they’re squinting and shading their eyes when they already have sunglasses on, you become aware that your blindingly white canvas is reflecting way too much light. Of course I live in some hope that one day my freckles will gloriously just join together as one and form the perfect tan.

Other problems of significance (!) is the never ending quest for the perfect bathers, I’ve studied all the articles they put in magazines and papers at the start of all summer seasons about the perfect bathers for your shape. I think the one thing they fail to realize is once you’ve had a few kids your body has been stretched; pummeled then unceremoniously flung to the kerb (like a Christmas tree on January first) it’s not as easy as just choosing one style of bathers. I have to do more of a cut and paste of each body type and let me tell you that leaves me with a very strange looking pair of bathers!

So cry me a river, my super model days are over before they even began, lack of tanning pigment and bathers aside there is one more thing and probably the thing I dread about the summer months the most. The public pool, I can’t pinpoint the moment I started hating them, I know my vitriol started years ago and before I had kids the public pool and I pretty much just avoided each other. However after I produced a few human beings especially one with boundless energy and a desire to go into any hole filled with water I realized I could avoid it no more. Being the dutiful mother I rang around and secured a prize Saturday morning swimming lesson spot for first child. Being the dutiful mother with an aversion to public swimming pools I packed up baby and Dad and sent them on their way. Problem solved or so I thought until more children appeared and husband informed there are only so many back-to-back lessons he can do before his skin starts shriveling. I would have to share the load and venture in the pool, aargh!

I tried very hard to hide my disgust for the luke warm swill I stood in with my baby as we sang ridiculous songs and ooh and aahed at how clever they were to stand on the side of the pool and jump in. In my mind the only clever thing my baby should have done is run to the nearest shower or disinfectant gel. I endured enough lessons to make sure my little piece of happiness wouldn’t automatically sink to the bottom and nearly high fived the instructor when she said it was time for them to have lessons on their own.

Of course the pool is more than just swimming lessons so as the kids got bigger they asked and asked until we took them to the local indoor swimming pool. Now the one good thing I will say about public pools is if you’re having some self esteem issues you just need to pop along to your local pool. Regrettably I have been to a few different pools now and lets just say compared to 90% of the people there you’re going to look amazing because I don’t know where they come from or go to but most pool patrons have decided most of the common laws of grooming and general presentation standards don’t apply to them and really haven’t for a very long time! I know it’s pretty harsh but I swear next time you’re at a pool have a look around, I think you’ll find I’m pretty accurate!

So public pools are not my favourite place but I knew I had got to a place where I basically had to suck it up because my minions couldn’t be deprived because of me. It didn’t take long for me to get a reminder of why I call them cess pools. The family trundled off to the local inside pool, I took the toddler and wandered around with baby clinging to me like a koala, so much for all the expensive swimming lessons I thought! I noticed from the corner of my eye my hubby powering through the water towards us. As he got closer his expression and colour drained face told me that something was wrong. All forms of tragedies flicked through my mind before he was able to reach me and fear glued me to the spot I was in.

Even though I knew something was wrong I was pretty confident we hadn’t been there long enough for a kidnapping or drowning so I stood and waited. He said nothing and directed me over to the side of the pool where I found our other kids
standing bewildered. It turns out my husband had been having fun splashing around only to move his feet and stand on something. I bet your first thought was band aid, no that’s gross but this was grosser, no it wasn’t a pooh that had escaped from a sagging nappy either. It was a used tampon, used, I gag just thinking about it and luckily I didn’t see it. Okay so public swimming pools had just sunk to a new low in my estimation but the bigger thing to think about it is this. How would you not notice a tampon fall out? I mean what kind of bowling alley have you got down there!!!!

Now let me just admit that my family is not above reproach in these things, we too have contributed to the cess pool. I’ve been sitting dutifully at the pools edge admiring one of my kids while they’re learning to swim. I’m dazzled by their skills and warmed by their enthusiasm only to be repulsed by the neon gob hanging out of their nose as they turn around to smile at me proudly. I motion for them to come to me as I desperately search for a tissue in my bag, by the time I look up I notice they’ve fixed that problem their way, snot it off in the water. I sit their gagging and trying not to notice the kids in the next lane putting their heads in and out of the water down stream of where the snot must have gone.

So bring on the cold weather, throw that ill-fitting pair of swimmers to the back of the wardrobe and pull the covers over the outdoor cesspools. My loved ones and I have survived another summer stewing in all manner of microrganisms and because we’re dumb creatures of habit we will be doing it all again next summer!

I thought I’d lived through enough fashion trends to know which to avoid but lately I’ve been reminded of how much I still have to learn.

For reasons I know I will regret in probably only a few years, who am I kidding probably months I have taken to wearing long skirts and dresses. I don’t mean past your knee, or even stopping mid calf, no, I have delved right down past the ankles and before I pay to have it rehemed, right pass my feet and draping all over the ground. I’m presently under some illusion/delusion that ground skimming skirts and dresses make me look longer therefore leaner, as I stated, delusional!

Anyway I’m happy to live in my delusion, quite frankly I think I’m rocking it and until I catch a glimpse of myself in a store window or see a photo someone takes of me and I’m snapped back into reality I’m going to continue rocking my floor length dresses and skirts. So clearly confidence is not my issue.

My issue is that I am a virtual walking safety hazard, I have come perilously close to face planting myself after getting my feet all caught up in the the material swirling around my feet. All this wonderful excess fabric falling stylishly to the floor looks fantabulous when I’m not moving but once that foot moves and the other has to follow it all becomes a matter of when and not if I’m going to topple.

Loved ones and total strangers have all saved me in the last few weeks from a complete tumble. It sounds quaint and honourable but it’s more like me grabbing them as I squeal and lurch forward and most don’t, ok none, have had time to offer assistance it’s more thrust upon them as I fall.

I also have to restrict myself to sealed roads and pavements because if I swirl through grass or vegetation I unknowingly collect on my floor skimming skirt or dress much of the vegetation I just passed through. It took a while for it to click that the scratchy, rough feeling I had at the bottom of my rockin new outfit was prickles and grass, by the time I checked it out I practically had my own eco system going on down there!

Sure I’ll look back and wonder what the hell I was thinking, much like the bubble skirt, the spiral perm and the layered top look, actually the layered look I think has still got a bit more mileage. Anyhoo the point I make is that I am a living, stumbling example of a woman who still has a bit more to learn about the price she will pay for fashion.